After Calling One Witness, Defense Rests in Arbery Hate Crimes Trial

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Protection attorneys within the hate crimes trial of the three white males convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery rested their case on Friday after calling only a single witness.

Not one of the defendants — Travis McMichael, his father, Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor William Bryan — took the stand in their very own protection.

The lads had been convicted in state courtroom final 12 months of chasing Mr. Arbery by their South Georgia neighborhood and murdering him. All three had been sentenced to life in jail. Within the federal trial, they stand accused of pursuing and killing Mr. Arbery particularly as a result of he was Black.

On Friday, solely the lawyer for Gregory McMichael introduced proof to the jury, in an try to buttress the protection’s central argument that the boys chased Mr. Arbery as a result of they suspected him of committing burglaries within the space, not due to his race.

The only protection witness, a lady who lived within the Satilla Shores neighborhood the place the defendants lived and the place Mr. Arbery died, testified that on one event in 2019 she noticed a white man who appeared suspicious beneath a bridge close to the doorway to the neighborhood. A.J. Balbo, Mr. McMichael’s lawyer, performed a recording of a name Mr. McMichael made to authorities that summer season after he, too, noticed a white man beneath the bridge whom he thought was suspicious and maybe answerable for burglaries. The defendants have argued in each trials that they had been on alert due to a rash of break-ins.

An advocate for Mr. Arbery’s household expressed skepticism about that line of argument.

“The protection tried to make use of this witness to indicate that their purchasers aren’t racist, that they known as the police on a white man and had been involved about crime, however simply since you known as the police on a white individual doesn’t imply you’re not racist,” mentioned Lynn Whitfield, a senior legal professional with the Transformative Justice Coalition who has been sitting with Mr. Arbery’s household through the courtroom proceedings. “They didn’t chase the white man by the neighborhood with weapons and kill him.”

The jury is tasked with figuring out whether or not the boys disadvantaged Mr. Arbery of his proper to make use of a public avenue as a result of he was Black, not whether or not they dedicated homicide. The lads are additionally charged with tried kidnapping, and the McMichaels are charged with one depend every of utilizing a weapon throughout a violent crime. If convicted, they withstand life in jail. Responsible verdicts would have sensible ramifications if the boys’s state convictions had been overturned on attraction.

The protection witness on Friday got here after prosecutors known as 20 witnesses and launched dozens of items of proof over three and a half days, together with textual content, WhatsApp and Fb messages and feedback containing racist language that the boys posted and despatched to others.

Among the many prosecution’s witnesses was Kristie Ronquille, who testified on Friday morning.

Ms. Ronquille mentioned that in 2011, when she was within the Coast Guard in Pascagoula, Miss., Travis McMichael, then her supervisor, made disparaging feedback about Black folks after studying that she had beforehand dated a Black man. Crying on the stand, Ms. Ronquille mentioned Mr. McMichael known as her an “N-word lover” on multiple event after that.

Requested by Travis McMichael’s lawyer, Amy Lee Copeland, why she had not reported him, Ms. Ronquille mentioned that she was new to the Coast Guard.

“That is my supervisor — it’d be like telling in your boss,” she mentioned. “Who do you inform in your boss to?”

On Friday, the prosecution additionally known as Kim Ballesteros, a neighbor of the McMichaels, who mentioned she remembered standing on the finish of a driveway, telling Gregory McMichael that she had a brand new rental property. Mr. McMichael instructed her about his personal tenant, a Black girl who had rented a house from him. He mentioned he had minimize off the girl’s air-conditioning in the summertime to goad her into paying her lease.

“You need to have seen how briskly her large fats Black ass got here with the lease test,” Ms. Ballesteros recalled Mr. McMichael saying. Ms. Ballesteros mentioned Mr. McMichael known as the girl a “walrus” as a result of she was “large and Black.”

“I used to be stunned,” Ms. Ballesteros mentioned. “It was racist and uncomfortable, and I used to be frankly dissatisfied.”

Mr. Balbo, Gregory McMichael’s lawyer, famous that Ms. Ballesteros continued to talk with Mr. McMichael after the incident and that his consumer rented to African People.

One other witness, Carole Sears, mentioned she recalled listening to Gregory McMichael “rant” about Black folks after discovering out that Julian Bond, the civil rights chief, had died. On the time, Mr. McMichael was an investigator for the native district legal professional’s workplace and she or he was using in his automobile due to her involvement in a authorized matter in Brunswick, Ga. Ms. Sears was upset about Mr. Bond’s loss of life, whereas Mr. McMichael was happy, she mentioned. “I want that man had been within the floor years in the past,” Ms. Sears recalled Mr. McMichael saying. “All these Blacks are nothing however hassle and I want they’d all die.”

Ms. Sears mentioned she didn’t communicate for the rest of the experience as a result of she was afraid.

Of their opening statements this week, protection attorneys criticized the racist language their purchasers used, however additionally they insisted that use of such language isn’t proof that the boys killed Mr. Arbery as a result of he was Black.

The lads chased Mr. Arbery “not as a result of he was a Black man, however as a result of he was the man,” Mr. Balbo mentioned in his opening statements.

The jury will hear closing arguments from the federal government and the defendants on Monday.